A/N: I gave the ninken human life-spans, but in the canon epilogue, Akamaru is quite obviously a dog reaching the end of his lifecycle. Somehow, I think it would be really inconvenient to base your entire fighting style on a partner who would have to be regularly replaced probably about every seven years. Or sooner, given how much trouble many breeds of large dogs have with their hips. So we're going to ignore that part of canon entirely. If it can have human speech capabilities, it gets to live at least a human lifetime. That's the rule of the KYH-verse. And it has nothing to do with this chapter. At all.

If Shikamaru's defining character phrase is "mendōkusei," and Naruto's is "dattebayo," Sakura's is "shinitakunai".

I think I agglutinated that correctly. Ah, well, back to your very short chapter, but quickly released.

Kill Your Heroes

-Chapter Fourteen-

Ergophobia (Part III)

Like some sort of terrible warble, the snake's skin swelled and parted to reveal the Kusa-nin, who didn't look at all upset at the turn of events.

Sakura couldn't say the same. Because she'd really, really hoped that the enormous snake, while she hadn't recognized it as a native species, had simply happened to live in these behemoth, oversized trees. That it hadn't been a summoned animal.

Because that meant they had no chance at all.

Though she'd been sweaty and warm from her struggle inside the snake, Sakura felt a chill sweep through her.

I don't want to die. Not for a chunin exam, not at the hands of this Kusa-nin, not before she had her first kiss, went on her first date, or any of the hundred other things normal, stupid things she was supposed to be able to do before she died.

Her grip on her knife was so tight that her fingers tingled from lack of circulation and she eased her grip a little.

No ninja lived forever, but she'd thought she would die for a better reason than this strange encounter. The Kusa-nin had never even made clear what it was she wanted. And she certainly hadn't thought she'd die in one of Konohagakure's practice fields.

Where were the proctors who were supposed to be monitoring this exam? she thought with a deep sense of abandonment and betrayal. How can she just summon something like that here and no one sense a thing? Surely they could have enlisted the Hyūga clan to help keep track of the candidates in the forest, if for no other reason than to make certain that the foreign-nin didn't leave the zone and attempt to infiltrate the village proper.

This was the bridge all over again. Even Sasuke-kun, as he was now, provided her with no feeling of reassurance that everything was alright, that things would be taken care of as they should be.

At least Sasuke-kun didn't look as stiff as he had earlier. He didn't look normal by any stretch of the imagination, but she thought she could trust that he would at least move if the Kusa-nin attacked.

"I sense your fear and desperation," the woman below them crooned, "The prey must never let down its guard, not even for a moment, in the presence of its predator. Although your friend's little fangs are unexpectedly sharp, mine are sharper." And then she was coming towards them and Sakura upgraded minor body manipulation to major body manipulation, because she slithered up toward them fast and agile as a real snake, her whole body flexing to conform to the shape of the tree.

Sakura crouched, shifting her grip on her knife and leaving her other hand free for now, trying for some flash of inspiration that would allow her to use the environment against her opponent. None came, but Naruto did.

Sakura was just a little bit relieved, but Sasuke-kun obviously felt that he was just one more person coming to die.

And when the Kusa-nin agreed, that was enough to set Naruto off. "You've been picking on my friends and I don't like that," he declared, as if they were six and on Academy grounds rather than standing over the cooling corpse of one of the largest summoned animals Sakura had ever even heard of. "Slither on back into your hole, snake lady."

Sakura hadn't even noticed that Sasuke-kun's Sharingan was activated until his eyes faded to black. Reaching into his pouch, he withdrew their scroll, turning it so that the Heaven character was clearly displayed. "Here," he offered, his voice steady and determined, "you can have it."

"Say what?!" Naruto shouted indignantly. "No way we're just going to hand the scroll over to the enemy. What's wrong with you?!"

"Stay out of it!" Sasuke-kun snarled at Naruto without so much as glancing at him.

"Very wise, very sensible," the Kusa-nin said, reaching out a hand as Sasuke-kun threw the scroll in a lazy arc. An arc that was intercepted by Naruto, who shoved the scroll forcefully into his own pouch and turned to glare at Sasuke-kun. He turned his back on the Kusa-nin as he stalked toward them on the branch.

"Stop playing the damn hero," Sasuke-kun growled, "just stay out of it and leave it to me."

Naruto's response to that was to punch him full in the face and Sasuke-kun stumbled back. "You idiot," Sasuke-kun hissed, "you don't know what you're doing!"

Naruto was breathing heavily, from emotion rather than exhaustion, and he yelled back, " I may not know the password, but I know who I am. You're the one I'm not so sure about. How do we know you're who you say you are? Surrendering, giving up the scroll, when did Sasuke become a coward?! You keep saying I don't understand what's going on, but I do. You've choked, that's what it is."

Sakura had never wanted to hit Naruto so much in her life. If she smacked him atop the head now, he'd go facefirst down against the tree and he'd do it so hard he'd bounce, she was that mad. She could have shook him until his teeth rattled, because did he think that sheer determination was all it took? If that was it, no one would ever die.

She was so angry that she wanted to let him face the snake alone when the Kusa-nin summoned another one, because he'd created an impossible situation. If he refused to retreat, unless they abandoned him, none of them were going to escape.

Kakashi-sensei, there should be a subclause that exempts us from being trash when it involves idiots who're going to get all of us killed.

"Get a clue, Naruto!" she barked as she dashed past him, his eyes widening incrementally as he took in her appearance, "This exam isn't worth dying for! I won't die for your pride or a stupid scroll or so that you can be the big damn hero. Whether she looks like an okama or not, she's not someone you can beat just by getting up again when you're knocked down!"

This time there was still branch beneath her as she came upon the snake and she dodged just enough to the side that the wind of its passing raised the fine hairs on her arm. As the tip of its head came even with her to her left, she flipped her knife into her left hand with the open edge of the curve toward her back, set her right hand against the hilt and drove it in as deep as she could, the knife scraping against the bone of its skull, the curve of the blade keeping it from catching or breaking. Her forward momentum and the snake's conspired to open a deep, gaping wound that trailed from its nostrils to the point where it slipped from the branch to fall down, down, down to the forest floor far beneath them.

She was so angry so she trembling as she turned to face their opponent once again. "That wasn't a very nice thing to say," the woman chided her. "Implying that I'm not very pretty isn't any way to make friends."

But Sakura was done talking. She'd put the woman between herself and her teammates, which would have meant something with another enemy, but now her desperate lunge forward was made only with a hope to rejoin the others, yank Naruto away by his collar if necessary, and get as far from this woman as her skills would take her.

Without any evidence that this was difficult, that these enormous snakes cost her any more effort than a thrown kunai, she summoned another one and Sakura was forced to leap aside or be crushed under the weight of its manifestation. Before she could make it back up to the branch, it struck at the boys and it was Naruto who stopped it.

Her gratitude fell flat when he just taunted Sasuke-kun, calling him a scaredy-cat in reflection of Sasuke-kun's earlier insult to him. Part of her went serves him right when the woman dismissed the summon and her tongue darted out quicker than the snake itself had moved, drawing Naruto back to her. She didn't see what sort of jutsu she used on Naruto, but she clearly saw the moment when she lifted him up as if he weighed nothing and tossed him aside. When he bounced off the tree's bark limply and began to fall, her hand darted to her kunai pouch and her throw drove it deep through his loose jacket and into the tree.

A shudder made its way down her spine as the Kusa-nin glanced down at her. "You're proving to be quite the vexing little prey, aren't you? There you are, all trembling, but you're the only one covered in the blood of your slain enemies. How very interesting."

"Sasuke-kun!" she shouted up at her teammate, ignoring the clear ploy to draw her into another conversation. She meant it as encouragement to take up his original plan. He was closer to Naruto and stronger than she was. He could have taken the opportunity to throw Naruto over his shoulder, toss the woman the scroll retrieved from Naruto's kit, and attempt to make a clean escape.

He took it as something else, jerking to awareness of himself like he'd been slapped, and the battle that followed was conducted at speeds she almost couldn't follow with her eyes. But she did see the moment when the Kusa-nin dodged Sasuke-kun's kunai by shifting her head only an incremental fraction and she understood, this is why Kakashi-sensei called my dodging sloppy. It moved so quickly over so much territory that she caught up to them only at the end of it, when they'd looped back around almost to where they'd begun and he had the woman bound to a tree. She suspected what would come next before he used the Katon: Ryūka no Jutsu.

His aim, her mind registered dimly, was off, the fire searing a hole through the tree trunk just above and to the right of the enemy-nin. And she only screamed the once, shrill and high and cut short quickly.

It was, she thought as she drew nearly abreast with Sasuke-kun, somehow...too clean, almost. Because it wasn't natural fire, it hadn't scorched the bark much outside the target zone, but none of the woman's clothes had caught fire and while her skin on her forehead had drooped and melted, it wasn't blackened or burnt.

"Get back," she snapped, reaching forward instinctively to snatch at Sasuke-kun's collar, but the woman was quicker.

Sasuke-kun had let the wire go slack, so there was nothing to stop her hands from running through seals, her whole neck elongating as she struck out at Sasuke-kun, burying her teeth deep into his neck. Sakura turned her grab into a strike, but the woman pulled away with a satisfied smirk.

Sasuke-kun collapsed to his knees, clutching at his neck, which wasn't bleeding freely like it should have been. His small, half-smothered noises of pain tugged at her more than screaming might have and she crouched beside him helplessly, her eyes still fixed on their enemy. The melted mess of face had obscured one eye and the woman reached up and tore the sagging flesh away, revealing much paler skin beneath. A striking eye, unnervingly intelligent and amused, its piercing gold skillfully emphasized with deep purple.

Caught by that gaze, she almost didn't notice that the symbol he wore had changed from that of Kusagakure to the single note that she'd only seen once before.

"What did you do to Sasuke-kun?" she demanded.

The voice that answered her was far lower and somehow more menacing for the fact that he—and it was certainly a he—retained that playful edge. "I just gave him a little parting gift. I think you'll find it very...useful, when it comes time to face my team. I'm sure he'll like it. Very soon, I think Sasuke will seek me out. He'll desire my power." He tilted his head, as if in consideration. "I wonder, if you would tell me why you didn't think I was dead, when Sasuke so clearly thought so and was relieved for it?"

"It's not my first time setting people on fire," Sakura answered in a low voice.

She was further unnerved to see that answer made him smile. "Ah. I'll keep that in mind. I wouldn't linger here, if I were you. I told my team to pay you a visit and it's a bad place to receive guests." And then he was gone and Sasuke-kun was all but whimpering next to her, so she tucked her knife away and knelt properly beside him, reaching forward with the intention of checking his wound.

She didn't expect him to collapse into her, still making those pitiful noises, his skin so hot she could feel it even through the barrier of her clothes. Though the timing was completely inappropriate, her heart seized, especially when her hands came up automatically to draw him closer to her. Her hand cradled the back of his head and found his hair so very fine and downy-soft and as his body sprawled across her lap, his head was pressed against her sternum. It was a strange, powerfully mixed feeling, partly very maternal, like she was cradling a hurting child to her chest, partly that of a girl very close to the object of her desire.

It was his scent that anchored her, because beneath that smoky smell that always lingered, he smelled like sweat and fear.

She glanced helplessly behind her, but Naruto remained pinned to the tree where she'd left him, his jacket still holding for the moment.

Sakura was alone again.